Atom Egoyan Movies and Career Information

Atom Egoyan, OC (Armenian: Ատոմ Եղոյան; born July 19, 1960) is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian independent film maker. His work often explores themes of alienation and isolation, featuring characters whose interactions are mediated through technology, bureaucracy or other power structures. Egoyan's films often follow non-linear plot-structures, in which events are placed out of sequence in order to elicit specific emotional reactions from the audience by withholding key information. In 2008 he received the Dan David Prize for "Creative Rendering of the Past". Egoyan was born Atom Yeghoyan in Cairo, Egypt, the son of Shushan (née Devletian) and Joseph Yeghoyan, artists who operated a furniture store. His parents were Armenian-Egyptians, and he was named Atom to mark the completion of Egypt's first nuclear reactor. In 1962, however, his parents left Egypt for Canada, where they settled in Victoria, British Columbia, and changed their last name to Egoyan. Atom and his sister, Eve, now a concert pianist based in Toronto, were raised by their parents in British Columbia. As a boy, Atom's desire for assimilation into Canadian society and his struggle with his father led him to